Metal Menace
by TermFan1980
Summary: I finally updated this story. Last chapter is mildly John/Cameron-ish. A T-850 has the TURK and the quest to get it back begins. Ch1 just an intro, so please don't be scared off by it. EPILOGUE ADDED.
1. Causing Trouble

Author's notes: This is my first ever fanfic. Rating is "R" or "M" mostly for language and violence. Setting is slight alternate universe since this is based on a TV show that will ultimately render my story inaccurate, but I attempt to stay true to continuity up to and including episode 5. I'm not sure how many chapters it will be, but the first chapter is an attempt to introduce the Terminator universe from an outsider's perspective, so bear with me.

Oh... and just a not about my writing style: I write in third person narrative. Characters' spoken words are normal quotes, and their thoughts are in italics and quoted.

Disclaimers: Terminator not mine, not yours. Don't worry, I highly doubt anyone involved with the real show/movies is reading any of this.

Chapter. 1

Twelve. Twelve hours. That's how long he'd been driving.

_"Why does it always have to be 125 degrees when I make this trip"? _he thought to himself as he drove into the rising sun. "_Why do I even bother going to these things anymore? It's just going to be the same shit as last year. A bunch of slobs sitting around a campfire talking about how much money they have made, or where so-and-so is working now, or who died this year. Then everyone will eventually get drunk and decide it's time to pull out a huge bag of fireworks. If one of those little shit kids of theirs throws a cherry-bomb at me again this year I swear to God I'm gonna throw him in the fucking trunk and drop him off twenty miles from town."_ He rested his head on his hand and propped his elbow up on the open window of his '67 Chevy. He glanced at a sign on the side of the road.

Las Vegas 201 

"201 miles…goody. Another three hours of this shit" his he said out loud. He wiped the sweat from his forehead as he watched yet another mirage disappear as he got closer to it in his seemingly endless journey chasing that point where the two edges of the road come together off in the distance. He pressed his foot farther down on the gas pedal, and watched the speedometer climb from 70 to 100 miles per hour. "Two hours", he grinned, flicked the remains of his cigarette out the window, and hit play on his tape deck.

…_She kept her motor clean  
She was the best damn woman that I ever seen  
She had the sightless eyes  
Tellin' me no lies  
Knockin' me out with those American thighs…_

He turned the volume knob to the right and lit another cigarette.

…_You shook me all night long  
yea you shook me all night long…  
_  
The effect of Angus Young's guitar riffs and Brian Johnson's screaming lyrics had added another five miles per hour to his speed.

After an hour of steady cruising at a buck-five, the car zoomed past a billboard instructing him to enjoy Coca-Cola. Hidden behind the billboard was a police car, which promptly turned on its lights and siren, then pulled out of its hiding spot.

_"Well that's just great"_ he thought to himself. After a brief fantasy of standing on the gas and outrunning the cop's pathetic sedan, he pulled the car to the side of the road and waited for the squad car to catch up. He watched in his rear view mirror as the car behind him finally caught up and parked.

"What took you so long, officer?" he said the man now standing outside his car door.

The officer said nothing and glared at him, writing something on his notepad. "License and registration," he said as he held his hand out. After reading the card and paperwork that was handed out the window, he looked back at the man in the car and said finally, "What's your hurry, Mr. Davis?"

"What's my hurry? I need to get to town to town to get a refill on my insulin shots. You realize you could be killing me by delaying me?" He responded, sarcastically. "But call me James. No, wait. Jimmy, since I like you so much more than most pigs."

"Sure ain't trying to sweet talk your way out of this one, are you?" asked the officer, glaring at the man.

"Anyone EVER talk their way out of a fifty-over ticket?" James inquired.

The officer ripped the ticket out of the pad and handed it to James. "Nope. Don't let me catch you doing triple digits again in MY county, or it will be impound and arrest time for you. Have a nice day."

Taking the ticket and throwing it in the back seat, James waited for the officer to walk back to his car before he started his engine and took off again. Watching in his side view mirror, he saw the police car make a U-turn and head the other direction down the highway. "_Hmm... I won't be seeing him again,"_ his inner monologue told him as he sped back up to 95 miles per hour.

After driving another twenty miles down the road, James noticed a car in his rear view mirror. It was getting closer, closing in on him quickly. "Damn dude... you're obviously in a bigger hurry than I am" he said to himself as he eyed the driver who was now tailgating him. "Christ, man. If ninety ain't fast enough for ya, just go around." The words came out louder this time as he let off the gas a bit to encourage the tailgater to pass. The following car then darted to the other lane and sped up to James's door. When he looked over, he was taken aback a bit. Staring back at him was a fairly large man with a blank, scowling look on his face. James continued to let off the gas and coast down to 60 miles per hour, but the other car stayed by his side, pacing him.

_"Ok, this is getting weird."_

"WHAT!!" he shouted out his open window at the creepy looking man in the car next to him. No response. "Well, FUCK you then!" he yelled as he clutched and downshifted into third gear. James stood on the accelerator pedal, and the tailpipes of his car belched a small puff of black carbon soot before wailing like a pair of wild animals exhaling the breath of the 390 horsepower big block engine underneath the hood of his Chevy. He instantly pulled ahead of the other car. Grinning, he waived goodbye to the other car in his mirror. A short lived victory it was. The other car sped up with equal authority, and rammed the rear of the Chevy. _Jesus…this guy is NUTS!_ He thought as he reached under his seat and felt around until his hand found the handle of the 44 magnum revolver he kept there. He slowed some and waited for the crazy driver to pull along side of him again. "_I'm gonna kill this son of a bitch." _It wouldn't be the first time James had killed a man, and probably not the last. But killing a perfect stranger was something he hadn't done up to this point. Stranger or not, he had just smashed the rear of his 5 year long restoration project, and Mr. Batshit Crazy was going to PAY.

When the other car pulled along side him again he took aim with his revolver and pulled the trigger like he'd done so many times before. He watched the head of the mystery man snap back and to the left. What he saw next made Mr. Davis swear he'd never take another hallucinogenic drug again in his life. The head of the man he'd just shot slowly turned back toward him, with a bright shiny metallic streak showing through his skin where the massive hole should have been. It wasn't a moment later when the car in the other lane swerved toward James, ramming him off the road into the ditch. Trying desperately to gather his sanity, James cranked the wheel to get the car back on the road, but he overcorrected causing the car to skid sideways...at 80 miles per hour. The tires dug into the soft dirt and caused the car to roll over sideways.

James wasn't sure how many times the car rolled over, because the last thing he could later recall was being ejected from the car and landing in the dirt on the side of the road.

That's all for Ch1. I promise to include the characters we all know and love from T:SCC in the next chapter.


	2. Trail of destruction

Chapter 2

"Mom! Drive faster! He's probably miles ahead of us by now!" an eager young boy's voice called from the back seat.

"And get pulled over? Get arrested for harboring a prison escapee? You have to be smarter than that, John" the woman behind the wheel responded.

"Yeah, and it's not like we don't know exactly where he's going with the TURK." Derek Reese said without turning around to face John.

The girl sitting next to John said vacantly, "The abandoned military storage facility. Near the site of the stolen Coltan storage. The other T-800 has likely rewired the door switch by now." She paused, as if calculating something. "Our survival probability will have decreased by thirty four percent if this is true."

"Tell that metal bitch to shut up." Derek said, again without turning around.

A confused Cameron tilted her head slightly, processing the comment. "I don't understand. I have a metal alloy chassis, but I bear no resemblance to any breed of canine."

Sarah and Derek both rolled their eyes and shook their head a little, while John bit his lip and turned away from Cameron trying to hold in a laugh. "I thought you were up on your slang terms," John said to her, grinning. "It's a slang term that means 'mean girl or woman'... and sometimes a guy in prison will be called a 'bitch'".

"Oh. Thank you for explaining." She looked ahead at Derek, then back at John. "Derek was a bitch before we helped him escape?" she asked with a dry but sincere tone.

Derek turned around in his seat and glared at Cameron, then to John. "I swear to God, if she ... it doesn't shut up I'm going to weld her mouth shut!"

Sarah spoke up, interrupting the tirade. "Derek... Derek!"

"WHAT!?" he yelled, unintentionally directing some of his rage at Sarah, and immediately sunk back down in his seat. "Sorry. What?"

"Up ahead." Sarah pointed at a police car on the side of the road with its lights flashing. As they got closer, they could see a body about 20 feet in front of it wearing an officer's uniform. She stopped the Jeep next to the body.

John looked out his window in horror. "Oh my God! We need to help him!" He started to stand up and climb out the back of the Jeep when he felt a hand grab him and pull him back down into his seat, hard.

"He's dead. There's nothing we can do to help him." Cameron said, coldly. "This will only complicate our mission." She made eye contact with Sarah in the rear view mirror. "Drive."

"How can you be so heartless?" John demanded. "We can't just leave him there to rot!"

"John..." Derek began to reason with him. "We can't afford to get involved in a crime scene. Especially when we know damn well who killed him. You have to start seeing the bigger picture. In war you have to leave the dead and keep fighting."

John sat back and huffed in frustration. He was not only frustrated at the situation of leaving a fellow human being to bake in the desert sun, but also frustrated with the fact that he fully understood Derek's logic. Was this part of being a military leader? Learning to accept the concept of collateral damage? He supposed so, and he hated it. He thought about this for the next 30 or 40 minutes of driving. They hadn't passed a single car in either direction, so he had a bad feeling that the poor officer's body would be laying on the pavement for quite some time. Rubbing his brow with his thumb and forefinger, he asked in an aggravated, sarcastic tone, "Are we there yet?"

The terminator next to him turned her head to him and gave him a look that, while robotic and emotionless, obviously said _"That was a stupid question." _ "No." was all she replied.

"Another one?" Derek said softly as he spotted a twisted metal wreck of a car in the distance.

Sarah squinted her eyes and craned her neck forward a bit as if to try to see the car closer. This action confused Cameron. _"Why do humans do this? Moving two inches closer to an object that is one hundred yards away makes a difference of only point zero two percent...imperceptible by the human eye." _

Sarah slowed the Jeep to a roll when they pulled up next to the crashed car. "It sure is easy to track these things. Just follow the trail of destruction." Sarah spoke with a thick cynicism.

"Over there. Another body." Derek said pointing to the body in the ditch about 50 feet from the wreck.

Before anyone else could say or do anything, John jumped out the back. He stumbled a little since the Jeep was still rolling along at a few miles per hour, but once he got his balance back, he ran over to the body.

"Shit." Sarah cursed under her breath, stopped the Jeep and put it in park.

"He's still breathing!" John called out to them as they were stepping out of the vehicle. This livened their pace and they ran over to John and the man on the ground.

John riddled the man with questions. "What happened? What's your name? Are you badly hurt?"

"James..." was all the man said. He tried to move his hand up to shield his eyes from the blazing sun, but a pain shot through his shoulder that made him yell in agony. He grabbed the shoulder with his other hand, and winced. "My car... I rolled it trying to get back on the road after he ran me off."

After scanning him, Cameron spoke up. "His shoulder is dislocated. I can fix it." She immediately bent down next to him and placed her hands in strategic locations on his shoulder and arm.

Seeing a teenage girl trying to play nurse on him sobered James right up. He quickly spoke, "Wait! Do you know what you're doing, girly?"

"I have detailed files on human anatomy. Now hold still, James. This will hurt. A lot."

"What the hell? Detailed files? Yeah, I got WebMD on my laptop too, but that don't make me a fuckin' doc..." His speech was cut short by a disgusting cracking pop, and a sharp new wave of pain ripped through his shoulder as Cameron relocated the joint.

They all gave James a moment to scream, and writhe in pain. A moment later, after James finally recomposed himself, Sarah squatted down next to him. "You said someone ran you off the road. Can you tell us anything else?"

The mid 30's man sat up halfway and propped himself up with his left arm, while he rotated his right arm through it's range of motion, groaning a bit as he did. "Thanks," he said to Cameron. "...and no. I can't tell you anything else". Speaking now to Sarah. "At least nothing you'd believe."

"Hmph" She grinned, and looked into James's eyes. "Try me."

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That's it for chapter 2.

Let me know what you think so far. Constructive criticism is most certainly welcome.


	3. Just A Machine

Chapter 3

Well, now James was in a bit of a pickle. On the one hand, he could explain to the four strangers exactly what he'd seen, and obviously they would dismiss him as someone suffering from post traumatic delusion. On the other hand, if he tells them that he fired a gun at someone's head for merely getting into a fender-bender (albeit an intentional one), they are apt to leave him there, call the cops to report a possibly homicidal man babbling about some invincible mystery man that attacked him, and Nevada's finest would be paying him a visit shortly thereafter.

"Try me," is what the matriarchal woman had said to him. She seemed slightly amused, provoking him even to tell her something she wouldn't believe. Maybe they saw this mystery man too. James sensed that there definitely seemed to be something...off, about these people. He stood up and brushed the sand off of his jeans and shirt. "No...forget it. I didn't... I was just..." he stammered trying to buy himself time to think. "It was nothing. Some asshole cut me off and I had to swerve out of the way and went into the ditch." He ran his hand through his short blond hair and averted his eyes away from Sarah.

"He's lying." Cameron said promptly.

John elbowed her and said quietly "Stop it."

Sarah shot Cameron and John a quick look of irritation, then placed a comforting hand on James's arm. She conjured up her sweetest, most consoling voice and said, "Look. I know you've just been through a lot, but you might be able to help us. We're following someone, so anything you can tell us would be helpful. And trust me... You'll be hard pressed to tell me something unbelievable."

James wasn't sure if it was the "slightly crazier than him" vibe that he got from the woman, or that he could swear he just saw the eyes of the younger girl just glow blue for a second, but he DID start to feel that they might believe him. "Alright, I'll make a deal with you," he said taking a step back form Sarah, and looked around the group making eye contact with each member, "You take me with you right now, and I'll tell you on the way. If the guy you're after is the same one that totaled my car and left me for dead, then I have a score to settle with him."

"Absolutely not." Sarah responded, quickly dropping the "motherly love" act. "Judging by the fact that you won't tell us, I think we already know everything we need to know anyway."

"So you're just going to leave me here?"

"The highway patrol will be by sooner or later. You'll live." Sarah began to walk back toward the Jeep.

"He'll live?" John said with disdain toward his mother. "You're starting to sound like... one of _them_." John continued as Sarah stopped walking and listened. He had apparently struck a nerve in her. "And besides... If what Cameron said earlier about the other one getting loose, then we'll need all the help we can get."

Cameron processed for a second, then turned to John and said "Actually, his assistance would be marginal at best."

Quietly, through his teeth, John snapped back at her "You're not helping." John had wanted to lend help to the police officer earlier (even though he was dead) and was not about to be denied helping about another victim of the metal menace. "Whether he can help us or not, bringing him with us is the right thing to do."

Sarah turned around. She gave a sigh that indicated her concession. "You don't know what you're getting into, James. This could...WILL be very dangerous."

"You guys armed?" He responded with a smirk.

Derek spoke up, "We have a nine millimeter Glock, and a twelve gauge."

"Then let me grab something out of my trunk before we head out." James said as he started to walk toward his car. As he approached the pile of twisted wreckage, a mixture of sadness and rage came over him. He had spent 5 years of his life restoring the classic muscle car. For 5 years, he had spent every free hour of his time working on it. He had to though. Burying himself in the work was the only thing that kept him from returning to drugs, or killing himself in the time after his wife was killed. Seeing the object of his obsession destroyed ripped his heart apart nearly as bad as the day she died. Talking to the four strangers had distracted him from how devastated he was about this turn of events, but seeing the mangled car up close made him want to drop to his knees as cry. This wasn't the time for that, however. He swallowed his emotions and wiped away the moisture in his eyes, pretending that the dry air was irritating them. He reached in, grabbed the keys out of the ignition and walked around to the trunk. When he inserted the key and attempted to open the trunk, it wouldn't budge. The crash had bent the metal up so bad that the lid was stuck.

After a couple seconds of tugging on the trunk lid, he slammed his fist on the top of it. "FUCK!"

"Let me try." Cameron said as she walked over to the car and wedged her fingers under the lid. A loud metallic snap rang out, along with the sound of metal scraping and bending as she ripped the trunk lid free of the blockage and opened it up. When James looked at her, dumbfounded, she shrugged and said, "I think you need to work out more, James."

Opening the trunk revealed an assortment of scattered tools, clothes, and a crushed laptop among other junk. James dug around a bit and pulled out a bolt action hunting rifle with a large scope. Immediately Sarah drew her pistol and pointed it at him. "Drop it!" She commanded.

"Easy, easy, lady." He said as he took his hand away from the trigger grip area and held the rifle by the shoulder strap. Derek reached over and took the rifle from James. "Hey now," James protested, "That was my dad's deer rifle!"

Derek removed the loaded magazine, and opened the bolt, checking that the chamber was empty. He closed the bolt and tossed the rifle back to James. "You can have this back later." Derek said waving the magazine at him.

James scowled at him a bit. "I just figured you guys needed some extra firepower. This is a thirty-aught-six Springfield. Packs a hell of a lot more punch than that pussy nine-mill." He said, nodding at the gun Sarah was re-holstering. "Seriously... are you planning on shooting at rodents with that thing?" he joked, trying to cut some of the tension.

Sarah smirked a little as she thought of the uselessness of a small caliber handgun when up against terminators.

"A nine millimeter would easily penetrate a human skull." Cameron said matter-of-factly.

_"What the holy hell is wrong with this girl?" _James raised an eyebrow and looked over at Cameron without moving his head. "You're actually starting to scare me, missy."

"Thanks." She said, breaking a rare smile. "But my name is not 'Missy', it's Cameron."

"Alright. Enough screwing around. We need to get moving." Sarah said and started walking to the Jeep.

James took one last moment to place a hand on the bent fender of his beloved car. Derek patted him on the back and said "Hey come on, man. It's just a machine. It's best not to get too attached."

The words came out of Derek's mouth with such indifference, but it hit John right in the gut like a fist. He remembered the anguish he felt as he watched the T-800 get lowered into the vat of molten steel years ago. It wasn't 'just a machine' to him. It was his protector, his father figure, and his friend. Watching it get destroyed was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. Even though John didn't know the emotional significance that the car had to James's late wife, he could tell that the car meant something to him, and that he resented Derek's words. He glanced over at Cameron and saw her glaring at Derek. She then turned and made eye contact with John. _"Not all machines are so easily discarded," _he thought, and wanted to say, however the only words that came out were, "Let's go."

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A/N: That's it for the third installment. Thanks for reading so far.


	4. Living Hell

Author's note:

Fortunately episode 6 didn't completely blow my story out of canonicity. In fact, it inspired most of this chapter. Hope someone is till reading this. :)

Warning: This chapter is a quite a bit darker and grittier, so the M rating means business. Nothing worse than a typical Stephen King novel though.

* * *

Chapter 4

It was bad enough that they were following an enemy that could easily kill all of them without much effort, but Sarah was extra edgy from having a stranger in the car with them. She was constantly looking over at James to make sure he wasn't going to try anything, so she pulled over and instructed Cameron to drive, and John to sit in front with her so that she and Derek could sit in back to make keep a close eye on him. This was completely illogical, since James was a bystander in all of this, and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But in her head it was perfectly logical that he could be a threat to John, to their mission, to everything.

James sat between Sarah and Derek in the back of the Jeep. He was trying not to look shifty, but both of them staring at him made him nervous._"God, these people seem paranoid. Like I'm going to try and rob them or something. There is four of them, including one fucked up little girl that seems like she'd change a tire without using a jack, and on top of that, they are armed."_ After a few minutes he couldn't take it any more. "Okay, lady...Why do you keep staring at me like I'm some sort of criminal?" He ignored the irony in his comment, since he was in fact and ex-criminal.

"My name is Sarah. Don't call me lady, James." Her face was inches from his. She could tell by his increased breathing and shifty eyes that he was hiding something. _"Terminators aren't the only ones that can read people,"_ she thought.

"Okay, okay. Sarah...call me Jim." He smiled, hoping to cut some tension by acting friendly. "I'm at your mercy here. No need to be such Nazis." He forced a laugh as he said "Nazis".

Her tone of voice lightened a little when she said, "We might be Nazis to you, but we're the ones trying to _prevent_ the next holocaust. Now, you ready to start talking, Jim?"

"There's not much to talk about, L...Sarah." He was still not ready to tell them something that could be something from 'The X-Files'. "I already told you...some guy cut me off and I..."

"BULLSHIT!" Sarah cut him off. She wasn't sure why she cared so much about what Jim had seen. She knew full well that "some guy" was actually the T-850 that they were tracking. Unaware of it herself, she was taking out her frustration on Jim. The loss of control of seemingly everything around her since they skipped to 2007 was eating her alive. She was losing control of John. He would run off and do things against her will. She was losing control of her and her son's destiny. She never _had_ control of Cameron or Derek. If there was one person in the car that she _could_ control, it was going to be Jim. She pulled the combat knife from the sheathe strapped to her boot, and held the tip of it under Jim's chin. "I know there's more to it that what you told us! The lies stop here, Jimbo! Answer my questions or you'll be in a lot of pain!"

Derek just closed his eyes hard and tried not to remember the events that were in his past, but in everyone else's future.

* * *

"Answer our questions or you'll be in a great deal of pain."

The room Derek was in had no windows, very little lighting, and smelled musty. The rubber skinned robot in front of him held an electrode an inch from the skin of his thigh. He spat at the machine and told it to go to hell. He soon after felt his entire leg tense up so tight that he thought the muscles would rip away from the bones. A stinging sensation that felt like a hot piece of iron being driven into his skin made him scream out in pain. A few seconds later (which felt like an eternity) the pain and tension stopped, as did the sound of sparking electricity. Derek gasped and panted trying to collect his courage and sanity. The smell of ozone and burned flesh now overpowered the musty smell that was present before.

"Where is the location of the underground resistance base?" The voice from the primitive Terminator asked him in the same vapid, robotic tone. "If you don't tell me I'll inflict more pain on you." There was a slight pause as the machine waited for a response, then more sparking, burning, yelling and gasping.

Derek thought for sure he had died and gone to hell. Here he was, stuck in a room being tortured for information that would kill dozens of his allies if he were to talk. He was tired, hungry, in pain, terrified and all alone. If it wasn't hell, he couldn't imagine hell being much worse. He wasn't sure how long this procedure went on, but he passed out after what seemed like hours. Several sessions like this occurred over the next few days, but every time, his resolve was strong and he spilled nothing, except for some of his own blood.

Each day after the interrogation session, he would wake up in a holding cell. It was a small cement room approximately 5 feet by 10 feet with nothing but a drain in the corner. He assumed the building was probably a prison a couple decades ago. Prison would have been a country club compared to what he was experiencing. At some point each day, a T-600 would come by and drop off a piece of bread and some water. Whether or not it was the same one that was interrogating him, he didn't know. They all had the same rubber face. For the first couple days Derek stuffed his bread in the drain and poured out his water in attempt to starve himself to death, but the machines quickly caught on to this and fed him intravenously while he was tied to the interrogation chair. He wondered if he could smash his head into the concrete wall hard enough to kill himself, but worried he would just knock himself out, wake up with a severe headache and make his life that much more miserable.

One day, while he was recuperating from yet another futile interrogation session, his cell door slid open, and a young woman was tossed into his cell. Derek watched as the girl tumbled to the ground with a meaty thud. At first she didn't move, and it appeared as though she'd been knocked unconscious, but after a few seconds her arms started to pull her along the ground. She managed prop herself up against a wall and hold her knees to her chest. Her face was buried in her folded arms and her body trembled slightly as sobbing sounds started to come from her.

The Tech-Com jumpsuit she was wearing looked very weather beaten and torn in many places. Derek's stomach began to tighten up into a knot, and make him feel slightly sick. She looked young to him. Not too young to be a Tech-Com enlistee, but too young to be put on a front line mission where she could be taken prisoner.

"Hey." Derek called over to her once her sobbing diminished to the point of just a sniffle every now and then. She lifted her head up just enough to peek over her arms. "Hey," he repeated. "Who are you?"

Gathering her wits, she sniffed hard once, and wiped her eyes with her hand. "Private Phillips. Enlisted level one."

"I'm Lieutenant Reese...but in here that doesn't mean much, so you might as well call me Derek." He wasn't trying to be cynical or jaded, but after being routinely tortured day after day for over a week, he didn't have many emotions left. "How did you get here? I mean, Tech-Com doesn't usually send Privates topside all that much. No offense, but you look barely old enough to be out of basic training."

As much as she tried to act tough, her quivering lip gave away her fear and desperation. "I... I was topside with a scouting platoon. It was my first real mission." She blinked and a tear rolled down her cheek. "We weren't even near a hot zone. We were drilling for fresh water sources in the area. We weren't very heavily armed because of this, and none of us had a plasma rifle. We didn't stand a chance." The last statement was barely understandable because she broke down again before she could get it all out.

Derek shimmied across the floor until he was leaning against the same wall next to the girl who couldn't have been older than 18. He wasn't used to this sort of thing. He was used to working with special operative soldiers, hardened men who only shed tears when overwhelmed with teargas. He wanted to tell her to suck it up, and if it had been any one of his men, he would have. But this was different. She wasn't a war-hardened soldier. She was a young woman that got sent to hell on her first mission. He wanted to comfort her, but what could he possibly tell her? That it was going to be alright? That she was going to be fine? That would be a blatant lie. Things were not going to be alright. Far from it. As he watched her choke back tears, he knew he could not tell her the truth. The truth at this point in time would sever the thread by which her emotional strength was hanging, so he decided to lie. "Hey, come on. We're gonna be okay." His hand found goosebumps on the back of her neck when he reached over to comfort her.

Her reaction to this was to turn and face him, and then reach her arm across his chest to grab his far shoulder. She placed her forehead on his collar bone and allowed herself to cry when his arms held her firmly.

"Don't worry, private." Derek's voice almost a whisper as he rested his cheek on the top of her brown hair.

"Cameron." The girl's voice was somewhat muffled from taking into Derek's shirt.

"What?"

"Since rank doesn't matter here." She pulled her head away from his shoulder and looked at him with her glassy brown eyes. "My name...It's Cameron."

"Well, try to stay strong, Cameron."

She rested her head back on the front of his shoulder and didn't say anything. She just laid into him a little and shut her eyes.

Derek had been so broken from the interrogation, sleep deprivation, torture and starvation that up until a half hour ago the foremost thing on his mind was trying to devise a way to end his own life. But now he looked down at the young woman and found a reason to push on. A reason if not for himself, then for her. What little comfort he could imagine that he was providing was apparently enough to calm her down from hysterics enough for her to fall asleep in his arms. He rested his head on the wall behind him and closed his own eyes. If he could savor a moment of tranquility in this living version of hell, then he would.

As much as he wanted to savor the moment, he couldn't. His conscious mind shut off almost immediately after his eyelids closed on each other. What could have been hours of sleep passed in an instant, and ended abruptly when the slamming sound of the cell door sliding open woke them both up. It was the deepest he had slept since the beginning of his incarceration, so it was exceptionally difficult to wake up and be alert. Before he could get a good bearing on what was going on, a hand was grabbing his arm and lifting him to his feet. By now he realized that there was no use resisting, so he went along with the robot.

Cameron, equally groggy, had flopped down on the floor when the shoulder she had been leaning on was pulled out form under her. She ran up and grabbed the bars of the door just as they were being closed on her.

"Derek!" She called out as he was being led away. "Where are you taking him!" Her voice was filled with fear and despair.

"I'll be back," he said over his shoulder, "and hopefully still in one piece."

* * *

He did return in one piece. One bloody and bruised piece.

"Hi honey, I'm home." The T-600 shoved him into his cell causing him to fall down to his hands and knees. He spat some blood out of his mouth and lay down on his side.

Cameron scurried across the ground to him from where she was sitting. "Oh God! What did they do to you?" She rolled him over onto his back and wiped some blood from his face. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and he had several new cuts and bruises. He winced in pain when she wiped off one particular wound on his neck. "I'm sorry!"

She began to whimper and Derek reached up and firmly grabbed the collar of her jumpsuit. "No! You stay strong. Or they win."

She swallowed hard and stopped whimpering. Using her shirt sleeve to soak up blood, she continued to clean his bloody lacerations. Her shirt would eventually be stiff from dried blood because this process was repeated every day for over a week. Over that week the roles of who was comforting who had taken a complete reversal. Had she not been there, Derek would surely have died either from blood loss, or loss of the will to live to the point where his body would have just shut down. There was no question, she was keeping him alive.

It was becoming routine, but after a day of particularly harsh questioning and beating, Derek turned to Cameron and said, "I lied."

"You lied? To them?"

"No. I lied to you...the first say you were put in this cell with me." He looked at her with eyes full of guilt and shame. "I told you we were going to be okay. We're not. We're never getting out of here. We're going to die here. Soon, if we're lucky." He closed his eyes, pushing tears out of them.

"No...don't talk like that." She sat next to him and held him in her arms. "Stay. Strong."

"What's the use? The world is in shambles. We have no more hope. It's not even worth fighting for anymore."

She looked him in the eye and told him, "There's always something worth fighting for." Without any more hesitation, she pressed her lips to his.

His mouth was sore, his lips cracked and swollen, and it hurt to do so, but either the pain didn't register in his brain or he just didn't care, because he embraced the kiss passionately.

Her mouth opened some and their tongues slid across each other's while remaining lip-locked. She climbed over and straddled him while running her hands through his hair and held his head to hers. His hands reached around her waist and pulled her hips tightly against his as they both began to breathe more heavily.

Their hands were starting to explore each other's body when the moment was shattered by the sound of the cell door sliding open. Derek looked over her shoulder to see the terminator approaching them. _"Perfect timing...Jesus Crhist,"_ he thought as he anticipated the clamp-like grip on his arm when the machine reached down toward them. Instead, the girl on top of him was lifted up and dragged on her backside out of the cell.

"No! You can't take her! It's supposed to be ME!" Derek shouted as he got up to chase after the cyborg.

Cameron was kicking, screaming and futilely calling out for help as she was dragged along the floor. "I don't know anything! I'm just a private!" She was bawling and shaking with terror.

Derek tried to wrestle her free, but the terminator effortlessly shoved him backward into the cell hard enough that he hit the rear wall and was knocked out.

When Derek came to, he first noticed that he was no longer in his cell, but tied to the chair where he had been interrogated so many times before. _"Shit...back here again,"_ he thought. But something was different this time. It took him a second to realize that he could hear the sound of a woman crying, though he couldn't see the source of it. "Cameron!"

"Derek!" the crying voice called back.

The voice came from behind him and he tried to turn around and look, but he was tied tightly to the chair. It wasn't until the terminator turned his chair around that he could see Cameron lying on a hospital gurney, tied down and naked. The expression on her face made him sick to his stomach. Never before had he witnessed such panic and horror on a woman's face before. _"This isn't happening,"_ he told himself.

The terminator stood between them and spoke to Derek in its synthetic voice. "Since you have proven that torturing you does not yield results, I will torture her until you tell me the information I require."

Cameron's breathing sped up to hyperventilation levels and her eyes nearly popped out of her head as the terminator held a scalpel against the skin of her stomach. The scream she let out as the blade was drawing over her abdomen was ear shattering. It left a thin red line that began to ooze blood from it.

"Are you going to tell me the coordinates of the resistance base, or shall I continue to carve her up?"

It was one thing to take pain himself. He could deal with that. After the amount he had gone through, he was almost getting numb to pain. But this was painful on a whole different level. Derek had seen his comrades shot and killed in battle, seen them step on mines and get blown apart, but he had never felt emotional pain like this before. He was in a state of moral dilemma no man should ever have to be. How could he just sit and watch this beautiful girl get mutilated? How could he give information that could potentially kill dozens of soldiers? He shut his eyes hard tried to mentally remove himself from the situation all together. It was working somewhat. With his eyes closed he couldn't see what was happening, and with some concentration he could block the sound of Cameron's screams and cries When the T-600 went back to work on her.

His concentration was disrupted when one of his senses he hadn't thought to ignore grabbed his attention. His sense of smell. He could smell something burning. Burning flesh to be exact. He opened his eyes and saw the terminator holding a propane torch up to Cameron's shoulder, turning it black. Derek instantly threw up in his lap.

There was only so much one man could be expected to take. He had endured weeks of daily torture, but this was what finally brought him to his wit's end. He hoped he could one day be forgiven for what he was about to do.

"STOP!" He bellowed at the terminator. "I'll talk! For God's sake! Just stop!"

The flame on the torch went out, but the shrieking from Cameron continued. The terminator turned to Derek and took a couple steps toward him. "Tell me the coordinates."

Derek rattled off exact longitude and latitude numbers for the terminator, and hung his head in shame and exhaustion after the final syllables left his tongue. The room was suddenly eerily quiet. No more screaming. _"Oh my God. Is she dead?"_ It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that as soon as the terminator had its information, they would both be immediately executed. "Cameron?"

What he saw a then would solidify his hatred for the machines the rest of his life. He watched as Cameron sat upright on the gurney, her face expressionless. The rope that was used to tie her down snapped like string when she sat up. She reached down and ripped the rope off of her legs.

"What the..." Derek looked in disbelief.

When she slid off of the gurney and stood up, she poked at her shoulder, causing the charred remains of her flesh there to crumble and fall to the ground. When she brushed away more of the black flaky mess, a polished metal shoulder joint was revealed. She turned to the rubber skinned terminator and said, "You held the torch here too long. It will take months to regenerate this living tissue. Log that error." Her voice was monotone and stoic.

Derek almost choked on his own saliva when he realized what was going on. "You... you fucking METAL BITCH!" He was beginning to see red. "You tricked me! Mother fucker! I'll take a crowbar and a sledge hammer to you and smash you into JUNK!" He was so seething with rage that he was screaming uncontrollably. He felt stupid for being fooled. He felt guilty for giving information. He felt fury that made him want to explode. The female cyborg show no reaction to these comments whatsoever, just continued to inspect her damages.

Mixed among the eruption of emotions was that of heartbreak. He actually felt something for the woman (so he thought at the time) that was in the cell with him, but it was all an act. He had never known a machine to be able to act like anything other than a cold robot devoid of any emotion whatsoever. He was used to brute force attacks from the machines, and it never occurred to him that they were capable of such devious subterfuge, so it's no wonder he fell for it. "I HATE you! I hate ALL of you metal mother fuckers!" His face was turning beat-red and he was shaking with anger. "I actually thought you were a human being! You ripped my fucking heart out, you goddamned robot!"

She stopped dressing her wounds for a second and looked over to him. "I didn't rip your heart out. You are delusional with emotion."

"Well you may as fucking well have!"

"I was willing to spare you an instantaneous death in exchange for your information, but if you prefer that method of termination, then I'll grant it." She began to step toward Derek.

_"That wasn't the best choice of words then. At least this will all be over soon,"_ he thought to himself and mentally prepared himself for death.

When he saw the hand reaching out toward him he took a deep breath to calm himself and shut his eyes. As he waited for the iron grip of the fembot to dig her fingers into his chest and start snapping ribs like dry twigs. Instead he felt a gentle hand lay flat on his chest over his heart. For several seconds is stayed there, as if she was taking his pulse, or analyzing the optimal spot to dig in and squeeze the vital organ. Or possibly, just possibly, this killing machine was thinking about not terminating the subject that it had just spent the past week keeping alive.

"DO IT! Metal Bitch!" He screamed at her, wanting the nightmare to end.

Her eyes changed from a wide open look of fascination, to a slightly narrowed look of resentment and her irises began to glow bright blue. She began to tighten her hand and put pressure on her fingertips when the entire building shook. She quickly pulled her hand back and whipped her head around, making her hair fan out and slap herself in the face as it wrapped around her head. Dust and small buts of concrete fell from the ceiling as a second explosion shook the structure.

As the sound of rapid fire plasma rifles rang out through the hallways, Cameron turned to the T-600 and gave orders. "It's the resistance. Hold them off. I will take the coordinate information to Skynet and dispatch an assault." The two terminators walked quickly out of the room, and went opposite directions in the hallway outside.

Derek sat, unable to move from his chair and listened to the commotion. Plasma blasts, grenade explosions, machine gun fire. The sounds were getting closer to him, and eventually he could see tracer bullets and plasma streaks passing by the door. A Tech-Com soldier walked passed the doorway and did a double take when he saw Derek tied to the chair. "We got a live one!" the soldier called out down the hallway, and ran into the room. As he closed the distance between them, the soldier's face showed an expression of surprise. "Lieutenant Reese? Holy shit...we thought you died in the assembly plant raid two and a half weeks ago."

He drew out his knife and began cutting the ropes that bound Derek to the chair. "Don't worry, sir. We're going to get you out of here."

* * *

"The lies stop here, Jimbo! Answer my questions or you'll be in a lot of pain!" Sarah's words seemed somehow muffled to Derek. He was blocking his perception of the world again.

The lack of results from her threat encouraged Sarah to put more pressure on the knife she was holding to the underside of Jim's jaw. The tip of the knife punctured his skin and a drop of blood ran down the edge of the blade.

"Aaooowww!" Jim began to cry out in agony.

Snapping back into reality, Derek fluidly grabbed Sarah's wrist and pulled it downward and away from Jim. He twisted her wrist which made her gasp slightly in pain and drop the knife. "NO! Sarah!" He looked into her eyes which were in shock, and slight fear from the quickness of the action that forced her into submission. "We don't do this." He glanced to Cameron in the driver's seat, and back to Sarah. "That's what THEY do. Whether you think you're in charge or not, I will NOT allow this to happen. Do you understand me?" He tightened his grip on her wrist and twisted harder.

"Okay. Let go." Sarah said in a meek voice. She looked at the small puncture in Jim's under jaw, and a wave of remorse washed over her. "I...I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

A voice from the front of the vehicle spoke up, "There was nothing wrong with your thinking. Torture is a very effective interrogation tool. It works in nearly all implementations..."

"Shut the fuck up, C3PO!" Derek cut Cameron off.

Everyone sat back into their seat and said nothing for a while after that. Derek and Sarah both stared out their side windows watching the scenery pass by.

Jim looked back and forth at the people sitting beside him. _"Holy shit. These people are nuts."_

* * *

Chapter 4 is done. Whew...that was a long one! I just couldn't disrupt the flow by breaking it up into smaller chapters. Hope you liked it. Let me know what you think, good or bad. Thanks. 


	5. The Red

Author's note: Sorry..the last chapter was kind of a one-shot that I decided to roll into the story...some liked it, some didn't Oh well. This chapter gets back to the main plot. Thanks for reading up to this point!

* * *

Chapter 5

"I shot him." Jim finally blurted out after a few minutes of awkward silence following Sarah's attempted interrogation. If these people were capable of putting a knife to a guy's neck over seemingly trivial information, Jim concluded that they would not be the type to turn him over to the police for firing a gun in a road-rage incident. Jim had also decided that the only way he might not end up in the trunk with several stab wounds and hauled off to a shallow grave in the desert somewhere was to make them think he was just as capable of killing as they were. He had to 'out-crazy' the crazies, so to speak.

A delayed reaction, but all in the car slowly turned to look at him, except Cameron, who simply glanced in her mirror.

"You what? Who did you shoot?" Sarah asked with genuine wonderment.

"The guy that ran me off the road," Jim replied. "The son of a bitch rammed the back end of my car and..."

John piped up, "You SHOT a guy...because he rear-ended you?" He had a bit of worry in his voice, concerned that they had picked up a lunatic that could be a threat.

Jim's plan was working. The boy was getting worried, and soon the mother would want him gone, out of the car. _"Better off walkin' it through the desert than being in the car with these nutjobs,"_ Jim thought. "Yeah. I shot him." Trying to act tough, he continued, "Fucker rammed me, then pulled up along side of me giving me a hard glare, so I grabbed my forty-four and..." he mimicked a pistol with his fingers, "BAM! Put a slug right in his head!" Jim sat back and put on his most sinister grin.

The girl in front glanced again in her mirror. "You collected evidence of a possible threat, so you terminated it. That seems like a perfectly logical course of action."

John massaged the bridge of his nose and sighed at Cameron's comment.

When he heard this, Jim's fake sinister grin melted away and morphed into a blank stare as he made eye contact with the creepy girl in the mirror.

"Wait a second..." Sarah began questioning, "If you shot him in the head, why did you crash. And furthermore, where was he? And his car?"

_"Shit."_ Jim hadn't thought this through very well. Now he was either exposed as a bullshitter, or he had to tell them what really happened. "Umm..._His_ car?... Why did _I_ crash?"

"He's buying time so he can think of a lie," Cameron blurted out.

"I told you to stop that," John said, glaring at her.

"Answer the question, Jim," Sarah insisted.

Jim was bad at bluffing. He needed to come clean and let the chips fall where they may. If they determine he's crazy and leave him on the side of the road, good. _"What if they actually believe me? That's when things will get scary."_

"When I shot him, he...he didn't die. It was like he had a metal plate in his head or something. The bullet just bounced off of his skull, and I could see something shiny underneath where the bullet blew away some flesh. It didn't even knock him out. Then he sideswiped me and ran me into the ditch." Jim waited for it. He held his breath and waited for the brakes to lock up and four hands to grab him and toss him out of the car.

"T-tripple eight," Derek stated.

"Yeah, gotta be," John replied.

"Chromartie?" puzzled Sarah.

"Actually, it could be any eight hundred series model. A forty four magnum at that range would have penetrated the titanium alloy skull of a six hundred series. It is also highly unlikely that Skynet has sent any T-six hundreds back through time since they are easily detectable." Cameron explained.

Jim glanced around and the other passengers in complete disbelief. "Umm... excuse me?" he interrupted. "Just what the HELL are you guys talking about?"

Cameron began to answer Jim's question. "You didn't shoot a man. You shot a Terminator. A cyborg from the future that was sent back through time, presumably from sometime in the late 2020's. It was a hyper alloy combat chassis covered in living human tissue, as opposed to the titanium alloy 600 series covered in rubber skin..."

"Cameron! Jesus...you can't just tell people that. They will automatically think we're nuts," John interrupted in frustration. Cameron logged the name "Cameron Jesus" as an alias that she would respond to hereafter.

Sarah could see that Jim was getting extremely overwhelmed and freaked out by all of this. She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, which he startled a bit from. He whipped his head around to her, his eyes wide. "Listen, Jim...I'm sorry I threatened you earlier. But now you know that we're dealing with things that aren't...normal, by any stretch of the word. We need your cooperation."

"Hey...if any of this is real... if any of this Chromatic, cyborg, t-eighty six hundred shit is real, then I don't want anything to do with it. Stop the car. Let me out." Jim was waving his hands around and talking very quickly, beginning to get hysterical. "STOP THE CAR! STOP IT! YOU PEOPLE ARE FUCKING LOONY-TOONS! I NEED TO GET OUT!" He began to stand up in attempt to jump out the back of the Jeep at 65 miles per hour. Sarah and Derek both pulled down on Jim, but his adrenaline was pumping and his fight-or-flight instinct was overpowering both of them. When Jim had one foot on the seat, and was facing the back ready to leap out, Cameron slammed on the brakes. Jim flew forward and became wedged between the two front seats with his back on the center console. His head slammed into the dashboard knocking him somewhat senseless. For a brief moment he stared up at the face of what, in other circumstances would be a very pretty adolescent woman, but under the current circumstances was a very intimidating demon child that could punch his soul right out of his head with the icy stare that met him. To add insult to injury, her hand reached back and grabbed him where the proverbial sun does not shine with a tight grip.

"Do not attempt to escape again. Do exactly as we tell you, and answer our questions truthfully." Cameron's grip contracted slightly, and her eyes began to glow red.

John noticed the eyes since he was at a better angle to see than Sarah or Derek. He became a bit scared of her himself, having never seen here eyes glow that color before. "Cameron...?" he said delicately and inched back in his seat a bit. This wasn't the Cameron he knew. Blue eyes seemed somehow friendly, but the red light reminded him of the evil killing machines that she was derived from. Even her voice sounded slightly different, more machine-like.

Jim gasped and forgot about the pain in his groin when her brown eyes turned crimson. _"She's one of them! This can't be happening!" _Jim's inner voice screamed in his mind.

Cameron continued, "Your usefulness on this mission will be short lived, so don't give me a reason to terminate you, Mr. James Albert Davis...alias Jimmy the Bull, alias James Jackson...convicted on two counts of second degree manslaughter, one count of armed robbery, grand theft auto, perjury, arson, and..."

"STOP!" John barked, exasperated.

Her eyes went back to normal, and she let go of his crotch. She humbly moved back to her normal sitting position. "I'm sorry." Her words were spoken softly, and to John it almost seemed as if she was embarrassed.

_"Yeah, sorry my ass."_ Derek thought as he and Sarah each grabbed one of Jim's hands and helped him un-wedge himself from between the front seats.

Cameron interpreted the look on John's face as confusion. "After we looked up Derek's file on the LAPD server, I read the rest of the police files. This man matched the picture and has the same first name..."

"She's one of them isn't she?" Jim choked.

Derek looked at Sarah, unsure if he should answer. Sarah herself was a bit torn what to tell the man. He knew something was obviously different about her, but they weren't convinced that he could be trusted yet. It was John who finally broke the silence. "She's a machine, but she's NOT one of THEM," he spoke with contempt.

Maybe Jim was ready to accept the fact that there were killer cyborgs on the loose, maybe even that they were from the future, but Sarah didn't want to overwhelm him with the thought of Judgment Day just yet. "Is there anything else you can tell us, Jim?" she asked. "We just need to stop that thing before it hurts anyone else. Can you tell us what it looked like?"

"He...he was huge. Like a bodybuilder. He kinda reminded me of Conan the Barbarian...but without the long hair. Weird, I know..." Jim paused to reflect on how the term "weird" would hold a whole new definition after that day, "...but that was who he reminded me of."

"Another 101...Uncle Bob." John said quietly, to himself, although Cameron heard it.

"The model 101 does share many similar facial features to the actor who starred in the 1982 film," explained Cameron. "There is only a point two percent chance than Chromartie rebuilt his skin to look like the 101, therefore there is a ninety nine point eight percent chance that another eight hundred series Terminator is among us."

"Great, more metal." Derek said, shaking his head. "I think we'll be needing your extra firepower after all, Jim." Derek pulled the rifle out from cargo area behind the rear seat.

"That thing is dead on accurate," Jim said proudly, still wincing and keeled over slightly from the ache in his nether regions. "Sighted it in myself. It'll put a hole through the "O" on a Coke can from two hundred yards."

"I don't suppose you have more ammo for it," worried Derek.

"Just what was in the magazine when you took it from me earlier," Jim snapped back with a little scorn in his voice.

Derek popped the magazine out again and checked it. He first noticed that the magazine only held 4 rounds and frowned a bit. His frown was quickly turned into amazement when he noticed the black tips on the bullets. "Jim...where did you get these bullets?"

"My buddy gave them to me. He said they would fly faster and farther than regular bullets. He was a sniper in the Navy Seals until he went awol. I guess he loaded them himself with extra juice...and let me tell you, they kick like hell when you shoot them." Jim paused to think for a second, then continued, "he also mentioned that they had extra penetration power. He jokingly said they could..." Jim used his fingers as quotes, "...'take down an elephant hiding behind a bulldozer'."

"They're armor piercing." Derek said as he popped one out of the magazine.

"Let me see," Cameron said holding out her palm behind her as she drove. Derek hesitantly placed the bullet in her hand. She held it up in front of her and studied it for a couple seconds. "It is not a typical M2AP armor piercing round. This one is tungsten surrounding a depleted uranium core, with a hardened titanium alloy jacket. Experimental rounds at this time. The military won't adopt them as a replacement for the standard copper-lead full metal jacket round for two years."

John took the bullet and looked at it with hope. "Will they hurt a Terminator?"

"Yes." Cameron answered. "The phased plasma rifle was not invented until early 2017. These bullets were the primary defense against the machines in the first few years of the war post Judgment day. It will easily penetrate the coltan enriched armor of the T-800 series."

"Well, we only have four of them, so we better not fire until we see the whites, or rather, the reds of his eyes," Sarah commented.

* * *

End Chapter 5.

Thanks for reading. As always, I'd love to hear what you think of my writing, good or bad. Actually, _try_ to come up with something constructively-critical to say. What can I improve?


	6. Please Remain Calm

Chapter 6

* * *

"We need fuel." Cameron flicked on the turn signal and took the off ramp which headed almost directly into a truck stop, and nothing else in sight. After pulling up to a pump, she opened the door and jumped out almost before the vehicle had shut off and began filling the tank with gas. 

"Hey guys...and, ma'am... I gotta take a piss," Jim said, giving an impatient look to Derek indicating he wanted him to move so he could exit the Jeep.

Sarah caught Derek's attention and said, "Go with him."

Derek rolled his eyes. "So I'm a babysitter now? You want me to hold it for him too while he..."

"Just make sure he doesn't run," she snapped.

"You got trust issues, lady." James recoiled and scurried out of the Jeep following Derek when he saw Sarah's nostrils flare up after he made his comment.

Once the two men were out of auditory distance Derek said in a low voice to Jim, "Yeah...she _does_ have trust issues." He glanced back over his shoulder. "She trusts a machine that was designed and built to kill, but she's afraid to let some car wreck victim drain the snake without a chaperone."

Jim smirked a bit at this, which in turn caused Derek to snicker. When they approached the bathroom, Derek pushed the door open and immediately turned his head away in disgust. He could almost see the fumes coming out of the small single bathroom. Derek had become used to uncleanliness and odors since hygiene wasn't the top priority among the surviving humans in the future war, but this bathroom was about as bad as anything he'd experienced. "Phew... good luck with _that_. I'll wait out here. If you don't come out in 5 minutes, I'll assume you passed out from the smell."

Jim leaned in towards the door and turned away the same as Derek had. He briefly contemplated just holding it, but the pain in his bladder was greater than the pain in his nose. "Oh God!" he gagged. Jim pulled his shirt up over his nose and looked at Derek. "Five minutes? Shit. If I'm not out in 30 seconds, send the bot in to drag my lifeless ass out and call an ambulance."

Derek laughed out loud as Jim put his nose to the inside of his elbow as if to shield his face from something, and crept into the nightmarish bathroom.

* * *

"I'm going to run in and grab some snacks. Want anything?" Sarah asked John. 

"Umm. Yeah. Grab me some Funyuns, Cool Ranch Doritos, a pack of beef jerky, some Combos...ummm" John tried to come up with as much as he could to send his mother on a scavenger hunt in the gas station in order to allow him some time to talk to Cameron alone.

"Anything else?" Sarah asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah... get me a microwave burrito if they have them." _That will buy an extra couple minutes._ "Hey...I'm a growing boy!" He said smiling.

"You're going to be growing sideways with all that junk food, John." Sarah said, shaking her head, then turned and walk toward the building.

After his mom was a few paces away, John opened the door and stepped out. He walked around back and leaned on the rear bumper near where Cameron was standing.

"You're not growing sideways." Cameron said to him after a quick visual inspection of his figure.

John was beginning to learn to ignore some of Cameron's comments, instead of trying to explain everything to her. This was one of those times. He didn't have more than a couple minutes before his mom or Derek returned, so he didn't have time for idle chit-chat anyway.

"Cameron, what the hell happened back there? On the highway."

She looked at him blankly. "What are you referring to?"

"When Jim was trying to jump out. You grabbed him, and...your eyes...they turned red. And your voice sounded...I don't know, mean. I don't know how else to explain it, but it was the first time I've ever seen you act like...like a real _Terminator_." John looked at her with worried eyes. "It really scared me."

"I'm sorry, John." She said as she lowered her head and looked down.

What was this? He expected a straight faced, concise, no bullshit answer to his question. She was apologizing? She actually looked remorseful. Was this some kind of act? Terminators don't feel remorse, or pity, or pain, or any of that stuff. But here she was, he head hung low with shame. It amazed John how one minute she was a cold robot, and the next, she was like the sweet girl next door.

"Sorry? What exactly happened?" John's voice was softer now, and he found himself reaching out and gently holding her shoulder for comfort. It was a natural response and he didn't really realize that he did it until his hand was rubbing her soft upper arm.

"I don't remember all of it perfectly," she said look up at John now. "My memory of those few seconds is very grainy and full of static." A look of actual fear washed over her face. "I think my original Skynet programming may have momentarily overridden my reprogrammed directives. The original program is hardwired into my chip, so it is never really completely gone, but when you reprogrammed me in the future, you bypassed that sector of the chip. There must be a small glitch, or hole in the new code. My reprogrammed prime directive--to protect you at all costs--is very much in tact and it is impossible for it to be altered, but I fear that the original Skynet program could cause me to do...bad things."

Even though she was essentially telling him that she was now potentially a threat to everyone but him, he could not help but feel bad for her when he looked in to her eerily sad eyes. Almost involuntarily, he gave her a comforting hug. When he realized he was giving comfort a machine that supposedly could not possibly need it, he felt a bit foolish and pulled back. He kept his hands on her shoulders, but held her at arms length. "Cameron, I don't know what to say." And he didn't. Was he to lock this information away inside himself, and deal with the risks? If Sarah or Derek knew, they'd leave her on the side of the road and never look back. He couldn't stand the thought of either of them getting hurt by her either though. He didn't have much time to think about this because his thought process was abruptly interrupted.

* * *

When the bathroom door opened, Jim stepped out and let out a huge breath. His deep breathing indicated that he had been holding his breath for the last minute or so. 

"Everything come out okay, in there?" Derek said with a big grin, almost laughing.

"Yeah...my lunch almost came up too. I'm so glad I don't have to sit down to do that. I feel sorry for Sarah right now," Jim caught his breath.

"Ha! Oh well...She seems like the type that would stand up to piss just to prove a point anyway." Derek Joked.

Laughing now, "I am woman, hear me roar. I can do anything a man can do, and all that jazz," Jim replied flexing his arms mockingly.

Derek was chuckling now too. "Did you see the look on her face when you called her 'lady' again?"

"YES! Holy shit! I was waiting for here eyes to turn red like that robot girl's!"

Derek's laughter waned, and his smile washed away. "Did you say, red?"

"Yeah," still grinning, and choking on a laugh or two, "here eyes lit up like lasers when she basically told me to sit still or die.

Derek thought about how he'd seen Cameron's eyes light up blue before, but never red. He wanted it to be insignificant, but it made him even more suspicious of her that before. Red eyes to him, meant death. He had stared into many a red glowing Terminator eye and lived to tell about it, but many, many of his friends had not. On top of that, he could swear that the "Cameron" model cyborg that had tricked him in the prison years ago had red eyes behind her brown synthetic eyeballs, even though he never saw them light up. It was just a gut feeling that they were there. Ad underlying evil beneath the convincingly innocent exterior. Only a truly evil machine could use a man like she had.

Derek's little trip down memory lane was accompanied by a terrible feeling of deja vu as he looked back over to the Jeep to see John hugging the machine.

"Metal Bitch!" Derek muttered under his breath. _You may have fooled them, but you don't fool me...not anymore! And I won't allow you to fool John!_

Derek's rage built more and more the closer he got to the vehicle. His walk became a jog, which developed into a flat out sprint. He was going to stop her. He was going to protect John. He was going to put that machine in its place!

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!!" Derek screamed as he tackled Cameron, knocking her over a steel garbage can next to the gas pump.

John was taken by complete surprise. He was too busy thinking about what Cameron had just told him to notice Derek charging toward them. "Derek! What the fuck are you doing?!"

Derek picked up the steel garbage can and raised it over his head, glaring down at the cyborg. "Goddamned mechanical succubus! I won't let you mess with John's head, you metal mindfuck bitch!"

Before Derek had a chance to throw down the heavy can with all of his might, it was batted out of his hands. A truck driver who was just exiting the building had watched a crazy guy charge a petite young woman and knock her to the ground with great fury. Being a good Samaritan he ran over to help out.

Derek was dumbfounded as the can he was holding slipped backwards from his grip. He snapped out of his rage to see a fairly large man standing beside him. At the same time, he heard John cry out in pain.

"You some kind of tough guy? Beating up a woman?" The truck driver grabbed the front of Derek's shirt. "Hey asshole! I'm talking to you!"

Derek was unresponsive to the man, because he was now fixated on the boy on the ground, bleeding from a cut on the side of his head where the garbage can struck him.

The sound of John's yell immediately triggered Cameron's primary mission. _Protect John Connor at all costs._ She sat up, wide eyed, and whipped her head to look at John.

_Subject Status: Unconscious._

"Oh shit," the truck driver said as he looked at what he'd done by knocking the garbage can out of Derek's hands. "Now look what you made me do!" The man slugged Derek hard in the gut.

The bullet wound Derek had suffered from the T-888 had not yet fully healed, to the fist to the gut caused him immense pain. Derek could swear he had just been shot again. Screaming, he keeled over and fell to his knees.

On her feet now, Cameron watched the man hit Derek, and she started to analyze him.

_Height: 6'-4"_

_Weight: approx. 285 lbs._

_Age: approx. 45 years_

_Threat level: HIGH_

_Action: Terminate _

The punch he dealt had a much greater effect that the truck driver had expected. Feeling that he had done enough to Derek for the time being, he turned to see if the girl on the ground was alright. When he turned around, he was suddenly face to face with the "girl", staring mesmerized into her red, glowing pupils. "What the fu..."

His breath was cut short as her had quickly grabbed his neck, choking off his air supply.

_Pulse: 120 bpm_

Her grip tightened as she continued to scan him.

_Pulse: 145 bpm_

She pulled him down to his knees, and gripped even harder. The man was desperately gasping for air, but his efforts were futile. As were his efforts to pull her arm away from him.

_Pulse: 190 bpm_

_Termination imminent. _

By this time, Sarah was just pushing her way through the door of the store with her hands full of food. She dropped everything she was carrying when she saw what was happening back at her vehicle. "Cameron! Stop!" She shouted at the Terminator, but received no response. Sarah's face went from surprised to absolutely horrified as she watched Cameron rip the throat out of the man on his knees. Blood squirted in rhythmic spurts from the man's severed carotid artery, and oozed out of his jugular vein for a couple seconds before he flopped over onto his face.

_Terminated._

Cameron scanned the area to see Derek and John on the ground, a dead man at her feet, Sarah running towards them, and through the store window, the clerk behind the desk picking up a telephone.

_Scan Analysis: Subject possibly alerting authorities._

_Action: Terminate witnesses._

Cameron reached into the back of the Jeep and grabbed the 12 gauge shotgun. She crossed paths with Sarah as she quickly walked toward the gas station doors.

"No! STOP!!" Sarah screamed at Cameron and tried to physically stop her by grabbing onto her arm and digging her heels into the dirt. Cameron just kept walking like the unstoppable juggernaut that she was, causing Sarah to dig two parallel trenches with her heels until her hands finally lost grip and slipped off.

After entering the gas station, she took a couple steps toward the clerk and fired a shot at the base of the telephone on the counter. She pumped the shotgun, ejecting the smoking shell, which bounced on the ground with that familiar hollow clacking sound.

The clerk's trembling hand dropped the handset of the phone as he watched the red-eyed woman raise the barrel to his face. "Don't shoot, lady...take whatever you want. PLEASE! You want me to open the safe?" he pleaded, almost crying.

_Possible responses:_

_1) Negative_

_2) Affirmative_

_3) Maybe_

_4) These gas prices are murder._

_5) Please remain calm._

_6) no response_

Cameron froze for a second, then looked around confused. She lowered her weapon, and noticed the spent shell on the floor, not remembering having fired a shot. The smoke in the air from the shot she fired earlier still lingered, and Cameron replayed the grainy memories of the past couple of minutes trying to figure out what had happened. "I'm sorry. Please remain calm," she said before she did an about-face and marched out of the building.

As she walked past an astonished Sarah, she said without turning to look at her, "We need to go. Now."

Jim timidly approached the vehicle and helped John to his feet, who had regained consciousness but was still dizzy and out of it. Derek pulled himself to his feet also, and watched as Cameron pulled the nozzle out of the fill hole in the Jeep and began dousing the truck driver's body in fuel. She clicked the lever to keep the nozzle pumping full blast and tossed it to the ground. "Everyone get in." She sat down, started the engine and pulled forward a few feet.

Everyone was in a state of shock from what had just happened, but they all knew they needed to get as far away from this crime scene as possible, so they all piled in.

Cameron lit a flare and tossed it into the pool of gasoline that had formed behind them now. As she planted her right foot to the floor and the Jeep jack-rabbitted forward, spinning all four of its wheels on the sandy ground. In a moment's time, they were on the acceleration ramp to the highway, speeding away from the blazing inferno.

* * *

That's all for chapter 6. Thank's for reading! 


	7. Two Birds With One Stone

Author's note:

Sorry for taking SOOOOOO long to update this story. The whole "Cameron going bad" idea kinda took the wind out of my sails, as I was headed that direction in this fic. I was ready to abandon this fic, but I thought up a new ending.

Enjoy.

------------------

Metal Menace

Chapter 7 - Two Birds With One Stone

John sat quietly in the passenger seat, replaying the scene in his head over and over. He tried not to think about it, but every time he shut his eyes he saw the horrified look on the truck-driver's face just before Cameron ripped a handful of flesh out of his neck. _He was only trying to help. _ It wasn't just the gruesome visual that was bothering John; it was the fact that he had yet another death on his conscience.

"How much farther is this place?" James asked from the back seat.

"We're almost there." Cameron replied. Her face had some of the truck-driver's blood spattered on it, and her hair was matted down on one side, soaked in drying blood.

"Do we have any kind of plan?" Derek spat. He was in as bad a mood as ever. "Or are we going to just rush in and get shot to hell?"

"No plan, yet. We'll know more once we're inside the compound." Sarah reassured.

Once they approached the guard-house by the main gate to the compound, Cameron put the car in park and waited for the guard to approach her window. To the guard on duty, the group looked like nothing more than a family from out of town that had become lost. He exited his shack and walked up to the driver's window. The sun was glaring brightly off the window, making it difficult for him to see into the car. He leaned in close to the window, holding his hand up in attempt to block the light. "You people lost?" The answer he received was a fist through the window, and into his forehead, knocking him unconscious.

The others in the Jeep jumped in surprise as she drove her fist through the window.

"Cameron! Shit! Is he dead?!" John yelled as he leaned over trying to look out the broken window at the body on the ground.

Cameron also leaned her head out the window to see blood oozing from the nasty cut on his forehead. "He still has blood pressure. His heart is still beating. He'll live," she said as she stepped on the throttle to ram open the fence gate leading into the compound.

---------------------------------------------

As they approached the main area of the compound, they could see the various buildings and storage depots.

"Park behind this building, before someone sees us," Sarah instructed. She was surprised that alarms were not sounding already, as there was not any cover to hide their vehicle driving up the road from the entrance. _Thank God for small favors,_ she thought as the all exited the Jeep. "We should get on top of this building and scope things out."

They all kept a low profile, and hugged the wall, as Derek peered around the corner. "The coast is clear. Let's get inside...quickly."

After they had all filed through the door on the side of the building, and climbed the stairs inside to the roof, they all snuck up to the ledge and peeked over, surveying the area.

"There it is!" James shouted with a muffled voice. "That's the car that the other... thing, was driving when he ran me off the road," he said pointing to a jet-black Mercedes parked outside Depot 37.

Cameron used the binoculars to get a closer look. She watched the Terminator step out of the big, black car and walk towards the entrance to Depot 37. "The Turk is likely inside the car. He is going into Depot 37 to let the other T-888 out."

John remembered his last encounter with the T-888 at the coltan storage depot. _What was his name... Carter? _

"Great. Now we're going to have two T-888s to deal with," Derek muttered.

"Only one triple-eight," Cameron corrected. "The other one has slightly different structural features. It's a T-850... an older model."

"A T-850?" Sarah inquired. "Less advanced? It should be a little easier to defeat than the triple-eight then, right?"

"Negative. The eight-fifty is for all intents and purposes the same as a triple-eight," Cameron explained. "The key difference in its design is the nature of its power cells."

"Power cells?" John asked, confused. "So you're saying T-888s have a more advanced battery?"

"More advanced and more stable," She responded, still looking through the binoculars. "The power cell in the T-850 is a hydrogen reactor. It is controlled thermonuclear power, but when ruptured it becomes unstable and will explode with the force of roughly a small tactical nuclear bomb... yield in the range of one half to one kiloton. Skynet revised the design for the triple-eight when the resistance discovered this weakness, and began taking out entire battalions of T-850s by shooting one them in the chest with plasma rifles."

Sarah grimaced. "Great. A walking nuclear bomb. Only Skynet would come up with something like that."

Cameron ignored Sarah's comment and began reciting her plan. "There is a manhole on the side of the road about 50 feet from where the T-850's car is parked. There are underground tunnels at this site that would allow me to get over there unspotted by other personnel. Once there, I will hopefully be able to get inside the car and retrieve the Turk"

"Sounds good. I'll go with you," John said, eagerly.

"No. It's too dangerous for you to engage either Terminator, even with my protection. Too dangerous for any of you. I will go alone." She glanced over at Derek. "You cover me from here with the rifle loaded with the armor piercing bullets. Aim for their heads. Structural damage will only slow them down, but a headshot will likely damage their chip enough to put them out of commission."

Despite John's further protests, Cameron walked down the stairs, and walked out to the street in front of the building. She lifted the manhole cover there and descended the ladder into the tunnels below. She didn't have much time to waste. Soon the T-850 would release the T-888 and would be returning to his car.

Derek watched through the scope of the rifle and John held the binoculars to his eyes. They all waited for what seemed like forever as Cameron traversed the tunnels. John nervously watched the manhole 250 yards away, waiting to see Cameron's head pop up from beneath it. His heart sank to his stomach when he noticed the two Terminators exit the storage depot and walk over to the car containing the Turk.

"Shit! They're out already!" John cried. "They'll spot her as soon as she comes out of the tunnels!"

John's prediction was accurate. A few moments later, Cameron pushed the manhole cover out of the way and began to climb out. She was not more than halfway out when she was grabbed by the iron fist of the T-850. Held by the neck, she was dragged out of the hole. She reached up and grabbed the T-850s head and pulled down, flipping him to the ground. Just as she raised a fist to punch the T-850, she was picked up and thrown across the street by the T-888.

Seeing that she was outnumbered, John grabbed the shotgun and ran down the stairs to street level. "We have to help her!" he yelled as he ran.

"John! No!" Sarah shouted, but he didn't listen.

A teenager running down the street with a shotgun in his hands was conspicuous enough to cause alarm. Guards began coming out of the woodwork when the sirens started going off.

_"INTRUDER" _

_"CODE 3"_

_"INTRUDER"_

_"CODE 3" _

The repeating voice blended with the sirens, alerting the entire compound.

"Shit. I'll run after him," James said, and grabbed Sarah's pistol.

"Hey! That's my gun!" Sarah exclaimed. "He's _my_ son. I'm coming with you," she yelled, trailing right behind him.

As Sarah and James ran down the road, bullets began ricocheting off the ground and various surfaces nearby. Before they got 200 feet from the building, Sarah felt a bullet hit her in the leg. She yelled in pain as she tumbled to the ground.

James turned around quickly, seeing his accomplice on the pavement. Without thinking, he took aim at the guard that was firing at them, and proved his marksmanship by putting a bullet in the chest of the guard.

He quickly reached down and pulled Sarah to her feet, helping her limp along to some cover behind a stack of pallets near a building.

"I think my tibia is shattered!" Sarah shrieked. "I can't run." She began ripping the sleeve of her shirt to fabricate a makeshift tourniquet to put on her leg. "You have to stop John!" she pleaded to James. "He'll get himself killed trying to save Cameron. Please."

"Ok. Just stay here. You've got decent cover and..." James was interrupted by a couple bullets hitting the palettes. He peeked around them to see a guard charging their position. James shot the guard dead with four 9mm rounds. He handed the pistol to Sarah. "Here. You should still have 12 shots left if any more guards show up here."

James stood and walked over to the guard's body. He picked up the AR15 rifle the guard was using, and began to run off toward John, whom he watched fire a shot at a guard with the shotgun. He could hear Sarah yelling to him as he ran, "Protect John! He's more important that any of this!!"

---------------------

Derek tracked the position of Sarah, James and John from his vantage point on the roof. He gasped when he saw Sarah go down to gunfire, but was slightly relieved to see her limping with James' help to their cover position. _Bet you're glad we let him come with us now, Sarah._

Derek watched a guard closing in on John, and cursed the fact that he only had four bullets. He couldn't waste one on a guard, because they were the only four bullets around that could potentially kill a Terminator. Of course, that wouldn't matter if John was killed by a guard before he ever got near the Terminators.

He watched as John blasted one guard, but John didn't seem to see the guard off to his left. He had to act. Training the crosshairs on the guard's torso, he squeezed the trigger. The 30-06 rifle cracked louder than any of the other guns that were shooting. A split second later, the guard's chest exploded, painting the wall behind him red.

"Holy shit," Derek said to himself as he rubbed his shoulder. "James wasn't kidding about these bullets."

After operating the bolt action and getting back into position, he used the scope to watch the Terminators fight. The T-888 was holding Cameron while the T-850 hit her over and over with a metal pipe. Derek zeroed the crosshair on the head of the T-888. He had a clear shot, but hesitated. A smirk was beginning to form on his lips while he watched Cameron get her face bashed in. For a second he moved his aim to her head. _Fucking metal bitch. _The thought had crossed his mind to put a round through her head, and his finger started to tighten on the trigger.

------

Cameron was struggling to get free, but the T-888 was larger and stronger than her. Her HUD went slightly fuzzy and distorted each time the pipe collided with her head.

_WARNING: Damage to cranial armor..._

_Structural integrity at... 72 percent._

She was beginning to speculate why Derek had not yet fired on the Terminators. _Has his position been compromised? _She wondered. In between hits, she turned her head and looked in the direction of the building Derek was on top of. Her enhanced vision allowed her to see the silhouette of him on the roof. She stared for a few seconds, and then saw a muzzle-flash. A fraction of a second later a projectile ripped through the coltan-enriched armor plating of the T-888's head. The bullet blew through the other side making a jagged exit wound. The circuits and chips that were in its head where shattered into a million pieces; small bits of wire and silicon spewed out of the hole in its head. A small puff of smoke and some sparks shot out of the hole as the T-888's grip on Cameron loosened, and it fell to the ground. Terminated.

After watching his accomplice take a bullet to the head, the T-850 looked to where the shot came from. It immediately spotted Derek on top of the building, and determined that it was too far away to successfully return fire with any weapons it had at its disposal currently. Its only option was to find cover, but in the middle of the street, there wasn't much to hide behind. Its microprocessor brain instantly determined that Cameron would be the best immediate cover, so the T-850 held her arms behind her back and positioned her between itself and the sniper.

--------

"I got you, you bastard!" Derek exclaimed when he saw the T-888 he had just shot drop to the ground. A moment later he had cocked the bolt again and was taking aim for another killshot. When he looked back through his scope to the T-850 now using Cameron as a shield he said to himself, _Shit, Cameron...get out of the fucking way...stupid metal._

Not having a clear shot at the moment, Derek took his finger off the trigger, hit the safety and used the scope to check John's position. James had already caught up to him and was holding him back.

--------

"Let go of me, James!" John shouted. "Cameron is getting KILLED over there!" His voice cracked from the stress he felt watching his friend get pulverized by two Terminators. When he saw the T-888 fall, and the T-850 subsequently grab Cameron and hold her in front of him, he knew Derek would not have a clear shot. He had to help her. James' grip on his arm was tight, but the rush of adrenaline John experienced allowed him to break free and run towards them.

------

Derek saw John break free and begin running to Cameron's aid. "Idiot kid!" Derek growled. He knew he had to act fast, as John would cover the remaining 100 yards quickly at his current pace. Moving his aim back to Cameron and the T-850, he still did not have a good shot. The T-850 had nothing exposed to shoot at. Time was of the essence. John was only about 70 yards away now. _Oh well...Two birds with one stone, _Derek thought as he flicked the safety off, moved the crosshairs to Cameron's chest and fired.

------

"Stay back, John!" Cameron cried as she stood, helpless in the T-850's iron grip. Then she saw another muzzle-flash. She was fully aware that she was blocking the entire line of sight, so she prepared for the bullet that would take exactly 0.26 seconds to arrive.

The bullet ripped through the chest plate armor beneath her flesh and kept traveling out her back. The projectile continued its journey through the T-850's chest armor. Both of them were knocked backwards by the impact, Cameron landing on top of the T-850.

Her HUD began flashing warnings:

_WARNING: Damage to critical components..._

_Plasma fuel cell malfunction. Power remaining...70 percent._

Cameron didn't waste time in picking herself up to assess the situation. She saw the T-850 lying on the ground; its chest smoking. A quick thermal analysis showed that the chest wound on it was increasing in temperature at an alarming rate.

_Oh no, _she thought when her logic processor concluded that the hydrogen fuel cell on the T-850 had been ruptured by the bullet, and was now unstable.

She whipped her head around to see John still running towards her. "NO! JOHN!! RUN AWAY!!!" she screamed.

John stopped in his tracks. This is the first time he'd ever heard Cameron raise her voice to that level. She sounded desperate; hysterical almost. He then noticed the T-850's chest now glowing bright orange, and he remembered what Cameron had explained earlier about the T-850's nuclear power cell. "Oh shit," he said softly, just before taking off in the opposite direction.

Cameron reached down and grabbed the T-850's shoulders. She used all of her strength to pick up the heavy Terminator and carry it to the other side of the street, where the manhole to the tunnels was. When she arrived, she stuffed the Terminator into the manhole, but it grabbed onto her hand as it began to fall. She was pulled flat to the ground with one arm in the hole, as the T-850 dangled from it. The chest of the T-850 was now glowing white-hot and was melting the endoskeleton all around it, dripping globs of molten metal down the vertical tunnel access shaft.

Fearing she would not be able to shake the Terminator's grip on her wrist, she grabbed the heavy, iron manhole cover with her free hand and swung it with all of her strength at her other arm, attempting to sever it. The massive cover just bounced off of her arm, barely leaving a dent. This was the one time in her life (if one could call it a "life") that she cursed being built out of such a resilient material.

If the T-850's power cell blew up this close to the surface, it would undoubtedly kill John. It had to fall to the bottom of the 150 foot deep shaft. Seeing no other options, Cameron decided she would have to throw herself into the hole with the T-850. Just as she started moving herself into the hole, Derek's fourth and final bullet blasted through her upper arm, severing it, and allowing the T-850 to drop to the bottom of the shaft. _At least he's still paying attention. _She thought to herself as she rolled along the ground away from the hole.

It wasn't more than a couple seconds after her arm broke free that the ground beneath her lifted up, violently. The force of the blast, even 150 feet underground caused the entire street to explode in a huge cacophony of concrete, dirt, dust, fire and stone.

James tackled John to the ground and covered his body with his own. The shockwave from the blast picked them both up and carried them at least 100 feet before dropping to the sandy desert dirt on the far side of the road. Bits of asphalt rained down on them like hot hail.

Cameron, being directly above the blast as street erupted, was launched two or three hundred feet in the air. The shock to her system was so great that she shut down, so her memory banks have no record of falling back down to the ground, smashing through the roof of depot 37, and being half buried in a pile of brick, wood, and glass.

Nearly a minute later, as tiny pebbles continued to trickle out of the sky, John shook his head, regaining his senses. The first thing he realized was that James was on top of him. "James... You can get off me now. I think we're safe now." Receiving no response, John shook James a bit. "James?" John worked his hands under James and rolled him off of his body. When James' body flopped onto his back on the ground beside John, he noticed that James' eyes were wide open, but he was in catatonic shock. Closer inspection revealed a piece of rebar protruding from his chest. James was not in a state of shock; he was dead. _That piece of rebar would have gone through my chest. He saved my life._ John began to feel a lump in his throat as he used his fingers to close James' eyes.

John stood up and looked around. Up ahead there was an enormous hole in the ground. The blast from the T-850's unstable power cell had blasted a crater two hundred feet in diameter. Tears began to well up in John's eyes as he realized that his cyborg protector had been at ground zero. _Cameron... no._

After the 120 second reboot countdown had timed out, power was restored to Cameron's CPU. Her HUD flashed on and flickered with static for a few seconds.

_Structural Damage:_

_Left leg... inoperable_

_Right leg... inoperable._

_Right arm... inoperable._

_Power cell damaged... 16 percent remaining._

_Organic covering... 14 percent remaning._

She lifted her head to survey her surroundings and saw that she was inside the storage depot, half buried in a pile of debris. "John!" she called out, her voice sounding much more digitized and distorted.

_Vocal generator malfunctioning... switching to default._

John was staring at the crater, contemplating that Cameron's body was either buried somewhere inside it, or vaporized completely by the initial blast. When he heard a mechanical voice calling to him from inside the storage depot, at first he thought it was some kind of voice in his head. Post traumatic stress... that was it. He was going crazy now.

"John!" the voice called out again. "In the storage building!"

The second cry for help confirmed that he was indeed sane, and not hearing voices in his head. John turned immediately and ran into the building that the voice was coming from. It didn't sound at all like Cameron, but somehow he knew it was.

It wasn't hard to find where she was in the building. Even though the air was extremely dusty, there was a gaping hole in the roof where the sun shown through. Beneath the hole was a pile of rubble, with some blue light emitting from it.

He trotted over to the pile and gasped when he saw his friend laying in the pile of rubble. She wasn't laying in it, so much as she as on top of it. Her right arm had been ripped off near the shoulder, and she had no body from the mid abdominal area down. Her skin was mostly ripped or burned away; she only had half a face. He put his hand to his mouth in shock as he looked at her... it. It had become easy lately for John to forget that she was a machine. But now, with her mechanical parts exposed, it was blatantly clear to John.

But if she was just a machine, why did he want to cry seeing her like this? Why did he want to go on a rampage, killing anything that got in his way until he received retribution from whatever made her like this? His mind was a cornucopia of emotion; sadness, frustration, fear, longing.

"John..." the mechanical voice said.

_Power cell damaged... 10 percent remaining._

"I don't have much time."

"What? What do you mean!?" John voice cracked. Then he saw a yellowish, slightly glowing fluid leaking from Cameron's abdomen.

"My power cell... damaged... " She used her one good arm and wiped her fingers in the yellow fluid and examined them. "Soon, all the isotope solution will have leaked out of my power cell... " The blue light in her eyes faded for a second, then came back.

_Power cell damaged... 6 percent remaining._

"John..." The half of her face that still had skin expressed a deep sadness. "I'm dying."

"No! Don't say that!" John dropped to his knees and scooped up Cameron in his arms. "This can't happen. Not again." Tears fell from John's eyes as he recalled his last encounter with a Terminator-guardian. He remembered watching the big guy humbly lower into the molten steel, giving him a thumb's up as he was taken out of his life forever. All the same emotions he felt all those years ago came flooding back, two fold. Cameron was not only his protector, but his close friend. He was closer to Cameron than he ever had been with is "Uncle Bob". They shared so many moments in school together, so many sidelong glances that John could swear meant something... something more than just her keeping an eye on him for safety's sake.

"John... Help me... I don't want to go..."

_Didn't WANT to go? _The plea for help played back in Johns head. How could she WANT anything? She was a machine. Machines didn't have desire, fear, remorse or any of that! On top of all that, John could see her one good eye starting to get moist.

"John..."

_Power cell damaged... 2 percent remaining._

"The triple-eights power cell..." Her voice was getting slower now. To John it sounded like a tape-recorder running out of battery power. "...same as mine."

_Power depleated... Shutdown in progess._

"JOHN! I L..." She tried to say something with the last spark of energy that was left in her system, but couldn't get it out before she was completely dead. The dim blue light in her eyes was finally extinguished. John broke down and began to openly cry.

Shortly thereafter, Derek, holding Sarah up with one of her arms slung around his shoulder walked into the building. Derek was torn with emotion. He was so glad to finally see the metal bitch put out of commission, but also stricken with sadness and confusion to see John so heartbroken. "C'mon John, it's just a damn machine." He said, trying to hide is glee for her destruction.

Sarah slapped Derek across the face. "Shut up, Derek." Sarah wasn't stupid. She knew that John cared deeply for Cameron. Their relationship was never anything physical, or even obvious, but there was definitely some sort of unspoken bond between the two... or at least from John's side, since she didn't think that the machine could return the feeling. She also understood how John felt just now. She had been there herself, in 1984. Even if John was feeling a fraction of the sorrow she felt when Kyle was taken from her, she could empathize. She reached down and put a comforting hand on her son. "John, it's time to go home now."

-------------------------

Closing notes:

Well, that pretty much wraps up this story. I hope you enjoyed it.

I'm Not sure if this will be the very last chapter or not. If I feel so inclined, I may write an epilogue chapter.

P.S. Upon re-reading this chapter, It is aparent to me that it ends a bit abruptly, and too simmilarly to one of my other stories. I'll get to work on an epilogue, if not a whole other chapter.


	8. Epilogue

Author's note:

By popular request, here is a follow up chapter for this story. It doesn't really go anywhere, but it provides a little closure to the story.

* * *

**Metal Menace**

**Chapter 8 - Epilogue**

* * *

_Structural Damage:_

_Left leg... inoperable_

_Right leg... inoperable._

_Right arm... inoperable._

_Power cell... 97 percent remaining._

_Organic covering... 20 percent remaning._

When her vision came back to her, she was staring at the open rafters of a garage. Further inspection determined that she was in the garage of the Connor household. To her left, a smiling John Connor looked down at her.

_Target Acquired: John Connor_

_Misson: TERMINATE_

Her only operational arm reached up immediately and grabbed the throat of the boy to her left. Instantly, her world went black.

----------------------------------------------------------

_REBOOTING:_

_Structural Damage:_

_Left leg... inoperable_

_Right leg... inoperable._

_Right arm... inoperable._

_Power cell... 97 percent remaining._

_Organic covering... 20 percent remaning._

This time when her vision came back, she was staring at the huge muzzle-brake of a .50 caliber rifle.

_Subject: Derek Reese_

_Threat Assessment: Very High._

_Mission: null_

She continued to survey her surroundings. To her right was Sarah Connor, holding a T-888 plasma power cell in her hand. She followed the wires attached to it up to her own chest. Sarah had her other hand on the wires, ready to yank them out the split second she felt threatened.

To her left, again was John Connor. This time he was not smiling. His face was painted with a mixture of worry and fear.

Target Aquired: John Connor

Misson: TERMINATE

Cameron knew that if she acted, one of two things would happen. Sarah would yank her power cords out, or Derek would send a half-inch slug through her head; or both. Before she could calculate an effective strategy, her HUD changed.

_Misson Revision v1.01. 10-25-2027_

_Misson: PROTECT JOHN CONNOR_

_Secondary Misson: PROTECT SARAH CONNOR; DEREK REESE; KYLE REESE; ALLISON YOUNG; MARTIN BIDELL; CHARLES DIXON..._

The list scrolled through hundreds of names; mostly resistance fighters stationed at the base where she was reprogrammed.

"John." Her voice was in its default, digitized and uncalibrated form, making John take a step back.

_Retrieving Voice Model: ALLISON YOUNG_

"John?" This time her vocalization had a familiar sound, which caused John to let out a small sigh of relief.

He was still very skeptical of her though, due to what happened the last time he powered her back up. "Cameron? Do you know what just happened?"

"Yes. My revised programming took longer to load than my hard-wired primary Skynet programming. That's why I acted on my original directive to terminate you. It's a good thing you took precautions when you powered me up this time, because it took approximately 5 seconds for my revised programming to load."

"How do I know you're... revised now? How do I know you're not going to try to kill me the first chance you get?" John asked, rubbing his bruised neck.

"You don't!" Derek quickly said. "Which is why we should get rid of her once and for all."

Cameron gave Derek an annoyed look. "You can. Interface with my CPU via the apparatus you made to inspect Vick's chip. There, you can verify the reprogrammed directives."

"Fair enough," John said as he reached over and pulled the chip from her head, which was easy because the skin covering was mostly burned away in that area. Once again, her world went blank.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Several hours later, after John was satisfied with looking at the information on her chip, he re-inserted it back into her. Before she rebooted, he took a few steps back to keep a safe distance from her in case it took longer for her "revised" program to load again.

When her eyes opened up, he spoke to her. "Cameron? Are you okay now?"

"Yes."

"You're in protect mode, not 'kill-me' mode?"

"Yes. It only took longer to load my revised directives last time because I was shut down from a complete power failure, so everything had to be reloaded." She noticed that this time, the power cell was installed in her chest, and the armor plating replaced. This was an indication to her that John was ready to trust her again.

He slowly walked back over to her until he was within reach of her arm. When she did not immediately go for this throat, he began to feel much more comfortable.

"Did you dispose of the T-888 yet, John?"

"No. We pulled the power cell out of it, but that's it."

"Good. Many of its parts can be salvaged for my repair."

"What about the rest of you... the parts we can't steal from it?"

"When I was in your computer, I created 758 files. Blueprints. They are in a format that is compatible with the most common CAD programs of this time."

John was quite surprised at this. He hadn't realized she was actually activated when he was probing her chip on his computer. "What else did you do when you were plugged in?"

"I logged onto the internet and emailed the blueprints to 200 different machine shops around the world. I was careful to only send a couple unrelated parts to each shop so that they would not be able to predict what the final assembly was. The best available material in this time is high-strength titanium. It is not as strong as the coltan enriched alloy of my original construction, but it will work."

John felt extremely foolish for plugging her in. _What if she WAS still in 'kill-me' mode? She could have alerted every Terminator in this time of my whereabouts._

"I also opened false lines of credit through several major credit unions to pay for the machine-shop work."

"Well," an astonished John responded, "I guess you've thought of everything. What about your skin? Will it grow back?"

"Yes. The organic molecules have what would be the equivalent of DNA in them, so they "know" how and where to grow to make me look the way I do. That's why I never scar."

John had noticed that the skin on her face had already started to spread and re-grow in the last week or so. He reached down to place his hand on the newly formed skin, stoking her cheek gently.

Cameron imitated John's action and reached up to touch his cheek with her metal fingers. He felt the oddest sensation of endearment as her cold digits traced their way along his jaw line and rested on the back of his neck. Goosebumps covered his skin when he saw her good eye begin to glisten with moisture.

"John?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

* * *

**Closing notes:**

**The end... for real this time. If this story ever continues, it will be in the form of a sequel. Again, I hope you all enjoyed it.**


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